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• When Furniture Row Racing closed its doors at the end of 2018, JGR hired 2017 Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. as its fourth driver. Toyota aligned with Leavine Family Racing and that team formed an alliance with JGR.
LFR’s driver, Matt DiBenedetto, led the most laps (49) in the Daytona 500 and was running fourth on lap 191 when Paul Menard’s Ford ran into the back of DiBenedetto’s Toyota, triggering a 21-car crash.
DiBenedetto was heartbroken after what was shaping up to be the best race of his career. Hamlin believes there is more to come from the 27-year-old Californian.
“He really ran well and did a great job in the draft,” Hamlin said. “We were always one row ahead of the mayhem. I saw he was right behind me pushing me on one restart, and I actually moved up to block him and the next thing you know he gets wrecked. It’s like, circumstances, and Joe has got a better understanding of why he thinks all that stuff happened today, but we were very fortunate.
“Matt was running great. They have a lot of notes from what we were successful here with and that car was super, super strong. It’ll be very important for us to have that car running strong and to gather more information, because as an organization we don’t want to lose a car and by losing Furniture Row last year, hopefully that 95 team can kind of pick up where they left off.”
• This year’s Daytona 500 was the final race of Jamie McMurray’s Cup Series career. Team owner Chip Ganassi gave the 2010 Daytona 500 winner one last ride before McMurray heads for the FOX Sports television studio.
McMurray recovered from a lap-50 crash to lead six laps, but was ultimately eliminated in a wreck on lap 199.
“I’m thrilled I made it as long as I did,” McMurray said. “I made it through two or three wrecks I should have been in and didn’t get torn up. It is just part of it. It is what it is and I’m just thankful I’m safe. This is just one of those places you come to that there are a lot of unknowns and certainly after flipping at Talladega speedway racing was a little different in my mind.
“It was certainly, a bizarre 500 to have so much green-flag racing and then so many wrecks at the end,” McMurray said. “It’s incredible to me how many times we were able to crash in the last 10 laps. It’s part of it. You were able to get big runs. It seemed like as the sun went down those runs happened more often. When the Daytona 500 is on the line, people are willing to take big risks. They just all waited to the end.”
• The Daytona 500 was the last race where restrictor plates were used to decrease horsepower. This year, tapered spacers will be used at 12 tracks in an attempt to create closer racing.
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